Florida cleaning up after Debby

Thursday

Jun 28, 2012 at 12:01 AMJun 28, 2012 at 10:52 AM

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby moved out into the open Atlantic yesterday, and rains finally eased over Florida.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby moved out into the open Atlantic yesterday, and rains finally eased over Florida.The state, however, was struggling to clean up the soggy mess left behind. In Debby’s wake were flooded homes and businesses, roads under water or cratered with sinkholes, and overflowing rivers that have sent thousands fleeing for higher ground.

Emergency managers said it was too early to gauge the extent of the damage. About 11,000 customers were without electric power in 39 counties yesterday, down from 29,000 on Tuesday.

The storm deluged parts of central and northern Florida with more than 2?feet of rain as it hovered in the Gulf of Mexico and cut across the peninsula. It was downgraded to a tropical depression when its winds died down on Tuesday night.

By yesterday afternoon, it had dwindled to a disorganized mass of thunderstorms in the Atlantic, falling apart as it sped away from the Florida coast.

Two deaths in Florida were blamed on the storm, and medical examiners were trying to determine whether two more were storm-related.

A woman was killed in Polk County when her car hydroplaned on a flooded road, and a woman died in neighboring Highlands County when a tornado wrecked her home, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management said.

A man died after his canoe capsized on Lake Dorr in the Ocala National Forest a few hours after Debby made landfall on Tuesday, and medical examiners still were investigating whether his death was related to the storm.

Yesterday, Pasco County deputy sheriffs waded into floodwaters around the Anclote River to recover the body of a man in his 40s.

“At this point, it’s really too early to tell what the cause of death was,” sheriff’s spokesman Doug Tobin said.

Torrential rains caused the Anclote to rise from 9 feet before the storm to major flood level of 27 feet on Tuesday. The floodwaters had receded a little yesterday but still lapped dangerously over surrounding roadways, and had a strong-enough current to sweep people away, Tobin said.